How to Inactive Project in Procore

Understanding Project Status in Procore

Managing your construction projects effectively requires knowing when to change their status in your management software. In Procore, every project has a designated status that reflects where it stands in its lifecycle journey. Active projects are those currently in progress, requiring regular attention and updates from your team. These projects appear by default in most views and dashboards, including the portfolio tool, making them easily accessible for daily work.

Inactive projects, on the other hand, represent work that has been completed or temporarily suspended. When you mark a project as inactive, certain automated functions like overdue notifications may be limited, but all your valuable project data remains intact for future reference. This status change essentially tells the system that while the project still exists, it no longer needs to be front and center in your workflow.

The beauty of this feature lies in its ability to prevent ongoing actions from affecting completed work. For instance, email notifications for tools like Submittals, Requests for Information (RFIs), and Punch Lists typically stop for inactive projects, helping you manage communication more efficiently. Your team won't receive unnecessary alerts about deadlines on projects that have already wrapped up, allowing everyone to focus on current priorities.

Benefits of Inactivating Projects

Keeping your digital workspace organized becomes increasingly important as your project portfolio grows. Marking completed projects as inactive helps declutter your project list, allowing active projects to remain at the forefront. Inactive projects typically appear grayed out or filtered from default views, making it easier to focus on current work without the distraction of completed jobs.

Another significant advantage is the reduction in notification overload. When a project becomes inactive, overdue email notifications for various tools like Action Plans, Correspondence, and Tasks can be disabled automatically. This prevents your team from receiving redundant messages about deadlines that no longer matter, streamlining communication channels and reducing digital noise.

Data retention represents perhaps the most valuable benefit of inactivation versus deletion. Instead of permanently removing a project—which would erase all historical records—marking it inactive preserves everything from documents to communication threads. All your records, attachments, and project directory information remain available for future reference, which proves invaluable for warranty work, legal documentation, or learning from past projects.

User permission management becomes more streamlined with inactive projects as well. You can limit access to just a few designated administrators, reducing the risk of accidental changes or updates to completed work. Meanwhile, full admins retain the ability to access these records for audit or reporting purposes, ensuring that essential historical information remains available when needed.

Considerations Before Changing Status

Before you decide to switch a project to inactive status, several important factors deserve your attention. First, verify that you have the necessary project-level admin or "Read Only" permissions with appropriate granular settings enabled. Without these permissions, you won't be able to change a project's status, regardless of your role in the project.

Understanding the impact on automated communications is equally important. When a project becomes inactive, Procore suppresses certain automated notifications for tools like submittals, RFIs, and punch lists. Make sure this aligns with your operational needs, especially if some team members still require updates about specific aspects of the project.

Reporting visibility changes significantly for inactive projects. By default, Procore excludes inactive projects from custom company reports. If you need to extract data from an inactive project for analysis or documentation purposes, you might need to temporarily change its status back to active. This consideration becomes particularly relevant when preparing end-of-year reports or responding to audit requests.

The project directory typically remains intact even after inactivation, preserving the record of who was involved. Consider whether you need to update or further restrict user permissions after changing the status. Some organizations choose to remove certain team members entirely, while others maintain the full directory for historical accuracy.

Step-by-Step Inactivation Process

Navigating through Procore's interface to change a project's status requires following a specific path. The process begins with accessing your account and locating the project you wish to inactive. Log into your Procore account through a web browser and navigate to your company's project dashboard or portfolio tool. From there, find the specific project you want to mark as inactive.

Once you've located your project, you'll need to access the administrative settings. Click on the project to open it, then look for the project-level admin icon or menu option. In many views, this appears as a gear icon indicating settings. Select this option to proceed to the project administration area where you can modify various project parameters.

Within the admin tool, navigate to the "General" settings page where the status toggle is located. This section contains fundamental project information and configuration options. Look for the Active/Inactive setting, typically displayed as a toggle switch that you can click to change from "Active" to "Inactive." This simple action signals to Procore that the project should no longer be considered in progress.

After toggling the status, don't forget to save your changes. Scroll down to find the "Update" or "Save" button and click it to apply the new status. You should receive a confirmation message indicating that your project has been successfully set to inactive. Depending on your system settings, the project might now appear grayed out in lists, and in some views, only administrators with full access rights will be able to see it.

Finding Inactive Projects

After changing a project's status, you might wonder why it seems to disappear from your usual views. This common confusion stems from default filtering settings that prioritize active work. Understanding how to adjust these filters will help you locate any project regardless of its status.

To view both active and inactive projects together, start by navigating to the main "Projects" tab in your Procore dashboard. Look for the filter settings, typically indicated by a gear icon or filter option on the far right of the projects list. Make sure the "Show active projects only" checkbox is unchecked to display all projects regardless of status. Once applied, inactive projects will appear in your list, though they typically look grayed out to distinguish them from active ones.

If you need to work on an inactive project again, you can easily reactivate it. Simply click on the project, navigate to the same settings area where you initially changed its status, and toggle it back to active. This flexibility allows you to temporarily resurrect completed projects when necessary for warranty work, additional phases, or reference purposes without losing any historical data.

Managing Notifications After Inactivation

When a project transitions to inactive status, Procore automatically adjusts several system behaviors to match this new state. Most notably, certain tools including Submittals, RFIs, and Punch Lists will stop sending overdue notifications to team members. This prevents your inbox from filling with alerts about deadlines that no longer apply to completed work.

Reporting functionality changes as well when projects become inactive. These projects typically won't appear in your Company Reports tool's custom reports by default, requiring specific filter adjustments to include them. Similarly, if you use the Procore Extracts application for data analysis, you might need to temporarily reactivate projects to pull their information into reports.

Access permissions often shift automatically with status changes. While full company administrators can still view and modify inactive projects, team members with lower-level permissions might find themselves restricted from making changes. This tiered access helps protect historical data while still allowing authorized personnel to reference or update information when necessary.

Best Practices for Project Management

Effective communication forms the foundation of successful project status management. Before inactivating any project, notify all team members and stakeholders about your intentions. This simple step ensures everyone understands that the project will no longer be actively managed, preventing confusion when certain notifications stop or access changes occur.

Taking time to review project data before changing status pays dividends later. Consider these important verification steps:

• Data completeness: Ensure all project records are finalized and up-to-date
• Documentation quality: Verify that important attachments are properly labeled and organized
• Correspondence closure: Check that all communications have reached appropriate resolution

Regular portfolio audits help maintain organizational clarity across your entire project ecosystem. Schedule quarterly reviews to identify which projects might qualify for inactivation based on completion status or activity levels. This proactive approach prevents your active project list from becoming cluttered with completed work, making it easier for everyone to focus on current priorities.

Establishing clear internal guidelines about when to mark projects inactive creates consistency across your organization. Some companies choose to inactive projects after final completion documentation is approved, while others wait until warranty periods expire. Whatever criteria you select, document them clearly and ensure all project managers understand the standards.

Advanced Portfolio Management

For organizations managing numerous projects simultaneously, Procore offers capabilities for performing bulk actions that save considerable time. Bulk permissions management allows you to adjust user access for multiple inactive projects simultaneously, ensuring consistency across your portfolio while reducing administrative overhead. This feature proves particularly valuable during organizational restructuring or when transitioning between fiscal years.

Some advanced configurations support automated scheduling for inactivity management. You might establish rules that flag projects remaining untouched for a specified period, triggering warning emails to owners and eventually changing status automatically if no action occurs. These automation tools help maintain portfolio hygiene without requiring constant manual oversight from administrators.

Warning notifications serve as an important safety net in this process. When projects are inactivated, Procore and related systems may send warning emails to project owners, giving them an opportunity to intervene if the status change was unintended. Similarly, some organizations implement deletion policies for projects that remain inactive beyond a certain threshold, though this requires careful alignment with data retention requirements.

The ability to customize these processes based on your organization's specific needs makes Procore's inactive project management particularly powerful. Whether you're handling a handful of projects or hundreds, these tools help ensure nothing falls through the cracks while keeping your active workspace focused on current priorities.

Troubleshooting Common Challenges

Even when following the correct procedures, you might encounter occasional issues when working with inactive projects. If you can't locate a project after inactivating it, start by checking your filter settings. Verify that your project search isn't limited to "active projects only" and look carefully for grayed-out entries that might be easy to overlook.

Access restrictions sometimes cause confusion when team members attempt to edit inactive projects. This behavior is intentional—Procore limits editing capabilities on inactive projects to prevent accidental changes to completed work. If you need to make substantial updates to an inactive project, consider these approaches:

1. Request assistance from a full administrator who retains complete access
2. Temporarily reactivate the project, make your changes, then return it to inactive status
3. Review your permission settings to ensure they align with your organizational needs

Missing notifications or automated report issues frequently arise after inactivation. Remember that suppression of certain alerts is a feature, not a bug—it prevents notification overload for completed work. If you need data from inactive projects for reporting purposes, you'll likely need to adjust your report filters specifically to include inactive status projects or temporarily reactivate them during the reporting period.

Real-World Implementation Examples

Construction companies across various sectors have found creative ways to leverage Procore's inactive project feature. A commercial builder completing a multi-story office complex might mark the project inactive after receiving final payment and completing all punch list items. This preserves the extensive documentation, communication history, and contact information while removing the project from daily workflows.

Renovation specialists often deal with projects that occur in phases over extended periods. Between phases, marking projects as inactive helps maintain clean workspaces while preserving all historical information for when work resumes. When the next phase begins, simply reactivating the project brings back all previous documentation, saving considerable setup time compared to creating a new project from scratch.

Property management firms frequently use inactive status for completed maintenance projects while keeping the overall property active in the system. This creates a hierarchical approach where individual tasks can be completed and archived while the master property record remains accessible for ongoing management. The ability to quickly reference historical work becomes invaluable when similar issues arise in the future.

Educational institutions with cyclical construction needs often inactive projects during academic years, then reactivate them during summer breaks when construction can resume. This approach maintains clear separation between planning and execution phases while preserving all documentation across multiple years of phased implementation.

Integrating With External Systems

Procore connects with numerous external systems and reporting tools, each handling inactive projects differently. Understanding these interactions helps prevent data disconnects across your technology ecosystem. Portfolio and reporting tools typically exclude inactive projects by default, requiring specific filter adjustments to include them in analyses or visualizations.

API integrations require special attention when working with inactive projects. Developers should note that some API endpoints may not include inactive projects in standard list calls without explicit filter parameters. This design helps maintain system performance but requires conscious inclusion when building integrations that need to access historical data from completed projects.

Project directory management remains accessible even for inactive projects, allowing you to maintain accurate records of who participated in the work. This proves particularly valuable for warranty claims, future reference projects, or when assembling teams for similar work based on past performance. The directory becomes a living record of institutional knowledge that transcends active project boundaries.

For organizations with complex project ecosystems, custom dashboards can help maintain visibility across both active and inactive work. Creating specialized views that clearly distinguish between project states while making both accessible helps balance current priorities with historical reference needs. These customized interfaces often become essential tools for executives needing comprehensive portfolio oversight.

Maximizing Long-Term Value

The true power of Procore's inactive project feature emerges when considering its long-term benefits for organizational knowledge management. By preserving complete project histories in an accessible but separate state, you create a valuable repository of institutional knowledge. Future teams can reference successful approaches, avoid repeated mistakes, and build upon previous innovations without starting from scratch.

Regular maintenance of your project portfolio enhances this value proposition. Consider implementing quarterly reviews where project managers evaluate which projects should transition to inactive status. This disciplined approach prevents your active workspace from becoming cluttered while ensuring that valuable historical information remains properly categorized and accessible.

Training new team members on the distinction between active and inactive projects helps maintain system integrity. Include this topic in onboarding materials, emphasizing both the practical aspects of changing status and the organizational philosophy behind maintaining clean workspaces. When everyone understands the purpose behind project status management, they become more likely to implement it consistently.

Documentation of your specific procedures around project inactivation creates valuable organizational continuity. Create a company manual or knowledge base entry outlining when and how to mark projects inactive, including any specific considerations unique to your workflow. This resource ensures consistency across departments and provides guidance when questions arise.

Transform Your Procore Experience Today

Managing your construction projects effectively requires balancing current work with historical documentation. Procore's inactive project feature provides the perfect solution, allowing you to maintain comprehensive records while keeping your active workspace focused on current priorities. By implementing the strategies outlined in this guide, you'll create a more organized, efficient project management environment that serves both immediate needs and long-term knowledge preservation.

The process of inactivating projects represents more than simple housekeeping—it's a strategic approach to information management that pays dividends across your organization. From reduced notification clutter to preserved historical data, the benefits extend to everyone from field workers to executive leadership. Best of all, the process remains reversible, allowing you to reactivate projects whenever circumstances require.

Remember that effective project status management evolves with your organization. Revisit your procedures periodically, gathering feedback from team members about what works well and what could be improved. This continuous refinement ensures that your approach to inactive projects remains aligned with your organizational goals and workflow needs. With these practices in place, you'll transform your Procore experience from a simple project management tool into a comprehensive knowledge repository that enhances every aspect of your construction operations.